Driving our national development, by Adewale Kupoluyi

As a further step towards attaining national development, a University don, Professor Olusegun Folorunso of the Department of Computer Science, College of Physical Sciences (COLPHYS), Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State, has offered useful insights on the subject-matter during a leadership seminar. The title of the leadership seminar was “Information Technology, Knowledge Economy and National Development: The Inseparable Triplets”. He defined national development as the ability of a nation or country to improve the social welfare of the people by providing basic amenities like quality education, potable water, transportation infrastructure, medical care and others, saying the motto of FUNAAB, which is “Knowledge for Development”, is an attestation to the fact that knowledge generated from the University were meant to promote national development.
The don said knowledge economy is an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality and accessibility of the available information, rather than the means of production by forming the basis for national growth and development in the 21st Century. For him, Information Technology (IT) refers to anything that is related to computing technology, such as networking, hardware, software, the Internet, or the people that work with these technologies. He observed that, there is IT revolution everywhere, not only in Nigeria, but on a global level and most solutions/breakthroughs in businesses and scientific problems in the various fields are achieved through the use of IT.
Despite the global development plans such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), there are still gaps or problems with most African countries including Nigeria. The problems include poverty, food security, poor health, poor sustainability of water and sanitation, lack of peace and inclusive societies and injustice. There is a paradigm shift with performance differential and competitive advantage, which is determined by intellectual, rather than physical resources, such as the production of tangible goods in developed countries towards intangible (knowledge-based assets) or informational goods as well as services.
He regretted that Nigeria was just joining emerging countries, noting that the country’s economy witnessed a negative trend by falling into an economic recession, due to mono-economic system of petroleum that it engaged in rather than diversifying the economy. Professor Folorunso revealed that for a country like Nigeria to emerge as knowledge economy, the following four pillars must be established: (i) institutional structures that provide incentives for entrepreneurship (ii) the use of knowledge, skilled labour availability and good educational systems (iii) ICT infrastructure and access must be made available, and finally, (iv) a vibrant innovation landscape that includes academia, the private sector and civil society must be incorporated. With reference to Nigeria, he said that institutional structures are not fully in place, as there is no synergy between parastatal responsible for the knowledge economy to flourish, regulatory frameworks are absent and there is lack of proper coordination through unified policy implementation and enforcement; while there is always big gaps between industries, government and academia.
Therefore, for IT knowledge economy and national development to be effective, they must be inseparable. There must be holistic synergy between the triplet and they must be well-coordinated. Research in IT must be tailored towards solutions to both local and national problems for national development; government should invest more in IT training of all citizens, as this may create an avenue of recruiting IT experts from Nigeria in terms of outsourcing IT gurus. From reliable source, it pays Microsoft to hire programmers in Asian countries than in Europe and America.
The lecturer admitted that Computer Science is one of the most viable programmes in the University in terms of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from postgraduate programmes, while the population of the students to lecturer is not encouraging when compared to other universities for undergraduate programmes. More staff (academic and non-teaching staff) are needed, if we really want the emerging knowledge economies to thrive in Nigeria. Moreover, local and international training of both staff and students is essential and should be accorded priority; for our students in Computer Science to be well groomed, there is need for state-of-the-arts computer laboratories for the Department.
Speaking at the occasion, the Vice-Chancellor of FUNAAB, Professor Kolawole Salako, who was represented by the Chairman, Committee of Deans and Directors (CODAD) and incumbent Dean, College of Engineering of the University, Professor Johnson Adewumi, lauded the College for the worthy initiative, which he said would help prepare lecturers better for their inaugural lectures. He commended the quality of the lecture and tasked other Colleges to take a cue from it, just as the Dean of COLPHYS, Professor Amidu Mustapha, appreciated University management for the support given to his College, stating that the lecture was one of the initiatives the College had adopted in providing research breakthroughs and serving as a form for mentorship younger lecturers and students. No doubt, the leadership lecture would go a long way in unfolding the blueprint that should chart the right path towards technological advancement for national development. All we need to do is to get the total commitment of all the actors to make this work. That should be the starting point.